Nerves
by JenFromTheRing
Summary: Don't let the Groom out of your sight! Ross goes to the drugstore, meets Emily... One Shot


**Nerves**

Ross would be marrying Rachel in just an hour and he was happy excited and nervous. This time it would be perfect. Neither he nor she would be drunk, he wouldn't fluff his lines and she wouldn't turn into a lesbian.

'Are you ready Ross?' Chandler asked. There had been no difficulty about choosing a best man this time because Joey couldn't be there. He'd been offered a great part in a movie and was on set in Hawaii. They had considered moving the date of the wedding but in the end they had decided it would be too difficult, because then other timetable changes would have to be made. It was going to be videoed and sent to Joey instead, and they would be going to Hawaii for their honeymoon. It was going to be a great day.

Ross sneezed. It was the third time that morning.

'Are you coming down with something?' Chandler asked, worried.

'I feel all right.' He just had this awful itch in his nose. 'Maybe the flowers are bugging me. There were all different kinds of flowers and he looked at them as though he could see which one was causing the trouble. His mother came running up.

'The flowers? It can't be the flowers.' She'd help choose them. 'There's nothing wrong with these flowers.'

'Well I don't know Mom, but something is making me sneeze.' He did it again.

'You're going to have to get something that will stop you doing that,' Chandler said. 'You can't sneeze all through your wedding.' Compared with other things he'd done at his weddings that was nothing. But if he could fix it, he would.

'I know. There's a drugstore on this block, I'll get something,' Ross said.

'Do you want me to come with you?' Chandler asked.

'It's okay I can get medicine on my own,' Ross laughed.

He left the building relieved to be outside. He was pretty sure it was the flowers as he felt better already. He went into the drugstore to ask for something to stop him sneezing and was sold an antihistamine. It had an hour to start working, which was fine, that was how much time he had.

He turned around and found Emily right behind him.

Emily. His partner in the worst wedding in the world. His innocent partner, he grudgingly admitted, but not one he wanted to see today or indeed ever.

'What are you doing here?' he asked in amazement. It came out sounding like an accusation, he realised.

'It's nice to see you too,' she said with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. He was looking down at her and realised he could see straight into her cleavage. He stepped back.

'Yes of course,' he said automatically. 'But-'

'Oh me? I'm here for a wedding,' she said lightly, giving him a shock.

'A wedding? Yours?' Please God, he thought, not mine. She laughed and he realised she had a ring on her left hand. Of course he knew she'd gotten married again already, although he had wondered about that marriage, it being so hasty, like the first.

'No, not mine, my cousin's.'

'Oh which one?' he asked.

'The one you don't like,' she said lifting an eyebrow.

'Which one's that?'

'You hated all my cousins?' she teased. 'What a very _hateful_ person you are.' He couldn't even remember them and her double edge meaning was unnerving him.

'Don't play games,' he said irritably although as soon as he said he realised that it was stupid to ask her questions when he had no interest in the answers. She was past, history, gone.

'The one with the apartment,' she explained.

'Oh that one,' he said, still feeling a surge of six year old anger at having been thrown out.

'Well, what did you expect,' she said, 'Why should he have given you a home when I'd lost mine?' and stepping past him, chose some cough syrup for babies. He stared at her, floored by her last words and uncertain how to respond. She seemed to sense this and looked back over her shoulder.

'Oh Ross? It's Ra-Chel, do try to get it right. It's very upsetting when someone gets it wrong.' He glared at her and left the store. Of all the annoying people he had to meet that day, it had to be her. He took his antihistamine.

'Are you okay?' Chandler asked when he got back.

'Yeah I'm fine,' he said. There was no way he was mentioning he'd seen Emily. He wasn't going to think about Emily at all, he wouldn't. Rachel, now, he'd think about Rachel, that wasn't hard, she was the one he loved, the mother of his child. And he'd concentrate when he said his lines, the name Emily would not be said

'I Ross, take you – you Emily.' Rachel's eyes widened in horror. 'Er Em – no Rachel, Rachel, I take Rachel, yes I do.' But no-one was jollying him along. Rachel slapped his face and stormed back down the aisle, Monica running after her with a reproachful look back. Everywhere there were reproachful looks, except from Emma who had sensed something wrong and started crying, setting off the twins.

'You idiot!' exclaimed his father.


End file.
